Over the past three decades, India’s Kokthang glacier has been retreating and a nearby lake has doubled in size.
Published Apr 26, 2019
Ferrar Glacier begins at Taylor Dome and flows toward the Ross Sea. North of it, an unusual feature known as “Blood Falls” stains ice bright red in one of Antarctica’s rare dry valleys.
Published Jun 23, 2013
This lake in northwest Russia is small compared to Lake Baikal, yet it still manages to make a stately appearance in satellite imagery.
Published Apr 4, 2020
Lake Erie’s shallowness not only makes it more prone to fluctuating water levels, but also enables this lake to freeze and thaw more readily than its neighbors.
Published Mar 16, 2007
This natural-color image shows glaciers and glacial lakes in the Bhutan Himalaya on October 28, 2009.
Published Nov 1, 2009
In the early summer of 2011, the Medvezhiy Glacier in Tajikistan slid abruptly down its valley, creating a glacial lake.
Published Jul 30, 2011
Like this lake in northwestern Nevada, many of the world’s prominent salt lakes are drying up.
Published Apr 4, 2018
Despite frigid temperatures, Antarctica’s Don Juan Pond rarely freezes.
Published Dec 28, 2014
Over the past two decades, an Alaskan glacier has melted into a lake more than five times the size of Central Park.
Published May 23, 2019
New Zealand’s longest glacier has shrunk in recent decades. Meanwhile, the lake at its terminus has grown.
Published Mar 26, 2017
Roughly the same size of Belgium, Canada’s Great Slave Lake runs nearly 2,000 feet deep.
Published May 24, 2019
North America’s largest northward flowing river gets its start at Great Slave Lake in Canada’s Northwest Territories.
Published Nov 28, 2015
Straddling Austria and Hungary, the lake is also known as the “Sea of the Viennese.”
Published Apr 10, 2017
One of the most famous glaciers in Patagonia periodically cuts off the major southern arm of Lago Argentino.
Published Aug 6, 2012
Long and short. Deep and shallow. Salty and fresh. Blue and brown. These are Africa’s Lake Tanganyika and Lake Rukwa.
Published Jun 20, 2019
Satellite data suggests this Russian salt lake is getting brighter due to the installation of check dams.
Published Dec 3, 2014
Huge sheets of ice carved out the U-shaped valleys that hold New York’s Finger Lakes. When they retreated north about 10,000 years ago, glaciers left deposits of gravel that dammed streams and caused the depressions to become lakes.
Published Nov 30, 2013
Without enough fresh snow to replenish it, Alaska’s Yakutat Glacier is in trouble.
Published Nov 26, 2018
The alpine lakes of the Tibetan Plateau are some of the most remote in the world. This mosaic of astronaut photographs, taken along a single International Space Station orbit track, depicts Lake Puma Yumco during the winter season. The lake is located at an elevation of 5,030 meters above sea level (16,503 feet), and is considered ultraoligotrophic, meaning that nutrient concentrations in both the water column and lake sediments are extremely low. Water in such lakes tends to be blue to blue-green and to have high clarity due to low levels of photosynthesizing organisms such as phytoplankton. Color change in these lakes is usually due to shallowing of the water—blue indicating deeper water. A depth transition is visible along the west-southwest shoreline of Lake Puma Yumco at the lower left of image. The most striking feature of the image mosaic, however, is the intricate ice block pattern on the lake surface.
Published Feb 27, 2006
Acquired July 1, 2009, this natural-color image shows Lake Minnewanka at the eastern tip of Banff National Park.
Published May 4, 2010
Across the rippling, crevassed whitescape of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, two unusual shapes appear in this grayscale satellite image of the frozen continent.
Published Feb 4, 2006
When it comes to the blue hue of meltwater lakes, darker means deeper; satellites can help scientists discover just how deep.
Published Sep 9, 2015
Declining water levels in this saline lake in northwestern China have exposed playa prone to producing dust storms.
Published Nov 25, 2014
A blast of cold air from Canada is fueling lake effect snow in several states.
Published Dec 10, 2019
Lake Teletskoye, one of Siberia’s prime tourist destinations, is a large lake that is nestled in a narrow valley between the snow-capped Al-tyntu (west, at top) and Korbu (east, at bottom) mountain ridges of the Altai Mountains. The lake is nearly 80 kilometers long by 5 kilometers wide and 325 meters deep; it is one of the deepest lakes in the world. But Lake Teletskoye is more than a large, deep lake. It is located within the 9,000 km² Altaisky Zapovednik nature reserve, which helps protect its unspoiled waters.
Published Oct 11, 2004
